


Thick as Thieves

by alltheglitters



Series: Thick as Thieves [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Heist, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Steve Rogers, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Heist, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheglitters/pseuds/alltheglitters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and his legendary band of merry men hunt down art criminals, returning masterpieces to the public. Currently, they are recuperating after the loss of Bucky, one of their core members. Unprepared to tackle the recent heist in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, their fears are confirmed when weeks go by, and they do not know where to begin.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Italian authorities and Interpol are more focused on capturing Steve’s team than recovering the paintings. The elusive Peggy Carter has reappeared in the team’s lives with information to assist their investigations. Natasha and Sam are worried that Steve is putting his heart on the line, but it is a sacrifice that they are willing to make as Peggy might be able to help them recover the paintings before it is too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick as Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> As a follow up to Peggy and Steve meeting in New York, this is the story of the team's adventures.
> 
> Disclaimer: in its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to Marvel, this work of fiction is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
> 
> Unbetaed. All mistakes are my own.

“It’s not your fault, Steve.”

Though Steve was silent, Natasha was spot-on, because he was thinking about it.

Whenever she said this, he wondered how much did she want someone to tell _her_ that, and whether she thought that those words would have the effect of absolving her guilt.

Steve rested his chin against the sofa. Not that Natasha ever liked to show emotion, but her lack of emotion in the last six months had been shocking to say the least – and hard to relate to for someone like him. There were moments he’d wake up and expect his best friend in the whole world – his brother– to throw a pillow in his face or to ramble during early breakfast; then reality would sink in, and paralyze Steve's entire being when he realizes that Bucky is just _gone_.

Steve always thought that he was the rock in the group, but it turned out that in this dynamic, between these three unsung heroes, him, Natasha and Sam, _she_ probably was the standpoint, because things didn’t seem to affect her so much, on the surface at least. She was a stone wall. Reliable in this particular way... She must have thought that, compared to him, who knew Bucky for 20 or so odd years, her grief meant nothing.

Steve felt that her affections, love and pain were just as justified, whether she was willing to admit to it or not. But he also knew that she didn’t like to listen to him when he tried to comfort her, even if he tried to do it in subtle ways.

He himself could feel his own heartache and guilt like a fresh wound. That day, when they were flying over the sea, Steve was piloting the helicopter and Bucky was _his_ responsibility. Steve had let him down.

Thus, he flat-out said to her and Sam that this mission was different.

It was impossible.

Bucky was the one who always had these magical tricks up his sleeves, and he was the one who pretty much spearheaded the whole operational side. Though Sam was more capable in the artistic and creative aspects of their work like forgeries and verifying the authenticity of artwork (much like Steve), he would help Bucky out quite a lot during their time together on the logistics of it all. But that wasn’t enough still.

Bucky was brilliant. He had this incredible resourcefulness that was unparalleled.

How on earth could they manage without him? It didn’t make any sense. And frankly, Steve didn’t want to spit at the memory of Bucky in this way by doing the job halfway.

“We’ve learnt enough of what he does,” Natasha put in quickly. “ _I_ have.”

Sam nodded, agreeing with her, but his tone was more careful. “I think we can do it, Steve… I’m sure we can, if you want to.”

Steve stared at them. “Can we?” He honestly didn’t know how they were going to begin to even think about pulling it off.

“You want to, Steve, don’t you?” Natasha raised a brow, egging him on.

Of course he wanted to. Steve Rogers’ philosophy was that, if it meant anything to anyone, then the artwork was worth rescuing. It was worth returning to the public.

But just because something should not be hidden away in private collections and galleries didn’t necessarily mean that they themselves had the capacity to find them and return them… Yet, there was something else nudging at him. Did they have the duty to help?

Steve caught Sam wincing at Natasha’s insensitivity from the corner of his eye, but maybe this was how people like Natasha grieved, and Steve would try his best to be understanding and forgiving towards her.

“This is our seventh mission together,” she reminded them, shooting a glance at Steve especially. Sam seemed ready to do whatever Steve, their de facto leader, decided to do. “We’ve done this so many times before – and we’re good at it. Actually, we’ve done things that are much _harder_ than this before, Steve.”

They had indeed done difficult tasks before, but the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, was revered for a reason. It was different, not just because it was one of the most famous museums in the world. The Uffizi wasn’t like The Met or the Tate Modern, other places that they had returned stolen paintings to, but it was also one of the oldest. Something about its history and age terrified Steve more than anything else. It felt divine, holy… The appalling analogy in Steve’s head was that them sneaking into the Uffizi Gallery to investigate art theft was almost as disrespectful and blasphemous as dipping their toes in a basin for holy water.

His Catholic mother would be rolling in her grave at the thought of him even considering this in the slightest. Then again, they would be helping, wouldn't they?

Steve excused himself. Said he wanted to go out for a run.

Clearing his head would be a good idea.

With that, Natasha was forced to drop the conversation, however reluctantly.

She had almost gotten away with her small gestures, but before he exited through the door he saw that her jaw was locking and her shoulders were very, _very_ tense.

 

 

 

 

 

For dinner, they settled on pad thai that Steve bought at the take-out place nearby.

During dinner, Natasha slid the newspaper across the desk, still determined as ever. It was clear that she was invested in this, and Steve was becoming more worried for her by the minute.

The article described the six paintings that went missing.

“Do you know what’s in Hall 22, Steve?”

Steve didn’t, because he didn’t want to have anything to do with this retrieval that she was set on doing. Besides, she would tell him anyway. So, off the top of his head, he suggested lazily, “Caravaggio’s _Medusa_?”

Silently thanking his undergrad students, this name was the first one he could think of. He was sure that his students could only recall Caravaggio in an exam, because the Italian painter ended up killing someone in a brawl, and young people, especially educated art students, never forgot a good scandal.

“Isn’t that 80?”

“81,” Sam answered from the other side of the studio, looking up from his computer. His fingers were on his keyboard as he typed.

Steve chuckled. He often forgot that there was no such thing as privacy in this apartment. It was quite nice, really. He felt less lonely.

He wanted to humor Natasha, because as much as he didn’t want to do this, he knew that this must mean something to her if she was still going on about it after half a day. “What’s in 22 then?”

“Do you _really_ want to know?” she teased, stalling and smirking.

In fact, he had never quite remembered her being so talkative and excited about anything before. So, he humored her. “Yeah, I do, Natasha. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Flemish and German paintings. It is a very tiny room. Not flashy at all. There are 21 pieces inside there.” She started listing the artists whose work was showcased inside this hall. “Georg Pencz, Hans Holbein, Hans Memling…”

“Fifteenth… sixteenth century... Flemish and German art… Exciting, Natasha.”

Some of these thieves were clearly clever people, breaking into the most guarded places in the world in order to steal art. Yet, the thieves had chosen smaller, peculiar and lesser known works. You could never sell a Boticelli or a Titian from the Uffizi on the market with the attention it would bring. Converting the painting into spendable sums would not be easily feasible either. However, when it came to Penz and Holbein, they were on the opposite end of the scale for those who would choose to rob the Uffizi. They were not top priority for any thief nor museum owners keen to protect their collections.

He couldn’t picture the artworks in his head, but he knew that these paintings were interesting. They were influenced by the Italian Renaissance in the late fifteenth century, though their portrayals of the natural world were not quite _there_ yet. One of Steve’s professors, Mr Banner, briefly mentioned these artists once upon a time and referred to them as the stepping stone to the Baroque era.

The thief behind this must have peculiar interests or peculiar clients… And perhaps, they liked low-key.

“They still sell for several millions each, even if they’re not as well-known,” she said defensively.

Worth in monetary terms was relative. Steve remembered being struck by journal articles when they first began their line of work stating that a certain heist was valued between 46 to 300 million USD. He guessed that for some people the difference between those numbers meant nil; and when it came to _those_ people, not even Natasha’s wealth could compare.

Natasha pulled up her laptop. “Do you remember Joos van Cleve?”

Steve’s first reaction was _who?_ However, Sam knew the answer.

“ _Death of Mary_ , _Eleanore of Austria_ …” Sam said, now coming over to sit beside them. “Yeah, Bucky insisted on returning _Eleanora_. That was an inconvenient trip – ”

Steve remembered now.

For whatever reason, Bucky liked Joos van Cleve (aka Joos van der Beke) a lot. Found the artist underrated. Steve, however, admired the artist’s detail for clothing, but not much else.

Van Cleve wasn’t Bucky’s absolute _favorite_ artist, but must have meant enough. Steve knew this, because Bucky had stolen Natasha’s credit card, and ended up at the bottom of a well in order to recover a portrait that was stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and subsequently transported to Budapest. Long story short, the team had to stage a snake-wrangling, algae-inhaling rescue to get Bucky out of the well.

And that was it – Steve knew what Natasha was getting at, and boy, she was good… If the painting meant anything to anyone, especially Bucky, Steve Rogers believed that it deserved a chance to be found and returned to its home.

That was it –

If the last few years were anything to go by, Interpol’s General Secretariat in Lyon may have more resources than they did to tackle something that required incredible complexity, but their so-called experts didn’t always have the right minds for it. The stealing part was the easiest bit. The harder part was transporting it. Selling it. Steve believed that the authorities couldn’t think like thieves, not the way his team did.

There was something to be said about vigilante justice, as he remembered Peggy saying to him this one time on the roof.

The Carabinieri Art Squad was awful as well… The branch of the Italian police force that combatted art and antiquities crimes was more concerned with their international image and smiling for the cameras than their actual work.

Based on that image in the newspaper, this recovery would involve a small number of paintings, and _smaller_ paintings than many of their previous tasks.

More importantly, it held a personal connection to them. This was their last gossamer thread to Bucky.

It was a familiar situation, and almost as though they were back in touch with their old roots. Harking back to the night that he and the boys first agreed to work with Natasha, this was what it reminded Steve of. They had agreed to retrieve a Nazi-looted Klimt, a Romanova family heirloom that she swore belonged to her great-grandmother. Well, she did come into their studio with guns a blazing (quite literally), but the boys had pulled one on her: though she wanted to add it to her private collection, they had vowed to return it to their legal owner at the end of the rescue - and they did in the end.

This was something else though. They were still recuperating. Readjusting. He didn’t think that they had the skills nor the energy to jump back into the game.

Peggy - there it was. He was thinking about her again.

He wanted to call her, but he was not sure where she was currently and whether she could pick up her phone. In their strange little courtship, he had gotten used to her appearing out of thin air every few weeks, all the while missing her. And boy, did he miss her right now. He relied on her for her support. At this precise moment, he felt like he needed it like oxygen. He needed to find that strength he used to have when his best friend was with him.

Despite its love for the classics, the world of art crime was ever-changing, and a few months being away from it could mean that they would find themselves disenfranchised.

Yet, van Cleve’s paintings were important to Bucky. After Googling them, Steve found that the rest of the paintings that were stolen were beautiful, even if he didn't know this area of art that well.

Steve sat there thinking for another ten minutes, much of which he spent wondering what Peggy Carter would say to him if she was here.

Maybe it was Sam’s unwavering support for the last few months that touched him. Or maybe it was Natasha’s sheer determination and inability to give in to her grief that did it, but mostly, he was thinking about Bucky. He wanted to do Bucky proud. Thus, he found himself nodding. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

Natasha clapped her hands together, making a sound that, if it had been anyone else, would have simply amounted to a _squeal_.

“You’re in, Cap?” Sam grinned, using Steve’s codename. While Natasha had clearly been planning for a while to get Steve on board, it was obvious that she relied on the fact that Sam was itching to get back to work, thus required no convincing.

Steve was still and certain as he said, “Yep.”

Adrenaline rushed through his veins, and the sensation was one that he welcomed. The recovery of these paintings was not going to be an easy feat, but just maybe, the hunt of their lives could be exactly what they needed to get back on their feet.

While the ghost of a smile washed over Natasha’s face, Sam patted Steve’s shoulder and said, “When do we start?”

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about the impossibility of selling well-known paintings on the black market comes from "Contemporary Perspectives on the Detection, Investigation and Prosecution of Art Crime" by Duncan Chappell and Saskia Hufnagel (which is the main starting point for a lot of my research), while the bit about Flemish artists being influenced by the Italian Renaissance movement is from the Virtual Uffizi website.


End file.
